Gateway to the real world
Social Sciences’ summer fellowship teaches important lesson

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

After spending more than a decade learning spoken and written Chinese, Chris Chan thought he was ready for a summer in China. Throughout his life, he had taken many trips to visit family in Hong Kong. He had kept abreast of the happenings in mainland China. He knew he’d face some unexpected challenges as he interned at the World Expo in Shanghai, but felt fortunate to be traveling to a place in which he could assimilate quickly and well.

“As it turned out, the real China was the biggest surprise,” Chan said. “So much of my experience in Shanghai was characterized by learning and new experiences — from acclimating to an international work environment to traveling by myself across China.”

	Chris Chan celebrates his Gateway Summer Fellowship at Mount Hua, one of the five sacred mountains of China.

As a summer fellow through the School of Social Sciences Gateway program, Chan spent his summer in Shanghai getting a taste of the real world by interviewing business and government leaders there. The Jones College junior learned from J.P. Lopez ’96, human resources manager at Disney Publishing; Gregory Pfleger Jr. ’00, a foreign service officer; Wang Qun, vice chairman of Yum Brands China; and Jose Villarreal, commissioner general of USA Pavilion.

“Every story is unique, and each persona has an individual set of ideals, beliefs and advice, but there was a common lesson in each story: The world as we know it is shrinking, and the global future is bound together,” Chan said.

That realization about the real world is just what the Gateway program intends for its students. The program affords social sciences majors the opportunity to explore career paths now so they can transition more easily out of academic life. Befitting of its name, the program acts as a gateway from student life to the real world.

“On the flight back to Houston after almost four months abroad, I knew I was a changed person,” he said. “I returned with hopes of sharing my experiences — the seeds of creating my own future — and eventually, changing the world.”

Chan was one of six Gateway fellows who spent their summers in China, New York, D.C. or Houston. The program offers stipends for social sciences undergraduates who identify unique uncompensated summer internships in the U.S. or abroad to gain firsthand experience working full time while they build rapport with accomplished alumni and interview leaders to discover the source of inspiration behind their achievements.

For McMurtry College senior Enstin Ye, the summer fellowship was a glimpse into the future.

“I have had the chance to see every aspect of inpatient psychiatry patient care –interacting with patients, attending group activities and family meetings, and working on behind-the-scenes social work tasks,” she said of her internship with Bellevue Hospital Center in New York. “This has been a truly eye-opening experience, and I am seriously considering becoming a psychiatrist.”

The Summer Fellows program is the newest of four under Gateway’s umbrella, which lets students gain firsthand experiences in positions that put their education to practical use. Through the International Ambassador program, students receive a stipend award, get guidance in making contacts and conducting interviews, prepare reflection reports and make presentations upon their return.

The Social Sciences Undergraduate Research Enterprise (SSURE) program funds independent research projects for students and provides course credit. In the past year of the program, students explored the role of physicians in genetic testing, studied survey methods of school bond elections, learned about subprime mortgages and looked at regional subcultures of the U.S.

The final prong of the Gateway program is the social science internship, in which students earn course credit while working at businesses, hospitals and government agencies, both in the United States and abroad. Rice students have recently interned with such companies and nonprofits as NBC Universal, American Civil Liberties Union, Merrill Lynch and the Children’s Assessment Center.

Applications for this spring’s Gateway International Ambassadorship are due Oct. 30. SSURE applications are due Nov. 30. Applications for the summer fellows program and the social sciences internships are due in 2011.